Congress Smashes Light Bulb Law .. For Now

Americans of all political bents have been stockpiling traditional, incandescent light bulbs ahead of the planned enforcement of the so-called Light Bulb Law which was signed by former President Bush. It now appears they have more time before having CFLs shoved down their throats.

In an attempt to pull government from yet another facet of American life, GOP lawmakers reached a deal and were able to include a postponement of the law in the Omnibus spending bill. The spending bill that will fund the government through the end of September of 2012 passed the House last Friday.

Republicans removed any funding for the enforcement of the Light Bulb Law. Without finding, the Energy Department will have no way to make sure that Americans no longer use the wildly popular and very inexpensive bulbs to which they have become accustomed.

The funding cut will have no effect on those that choose Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) or LED lights which require less electricity to run, but are hugely more expensive to purchase. 6 100-watt equivalent CFLs cost about $20.00 – more than $3 per bulb – while the standard 100 watt incandescent bulbs can be purchased for less than $0.80 per bulb.

The CFLs at the the $3.25/bulb end of the spectrum also contain mercury – a serious toxin that makes bulb breakage a HAZMAT event.

The standards that were due to go into effect on January 1st only applied to 100 watt bulbs. 75-watt bulbs would have been regulated out-of-existence in 2013 and all other incandescents in 2014.

To fully reverse the light bulb mandates, the 2007 law will need to be repealed. Something Republicans in the House and Senate were looking to do in March of this year. As it stands, the 100-watt provisions would now go into effect in October of 2012 with the 75-watt provisions following close behind. This could be another regulation that will be killed or strengthened at the ballot box in 2012.

Jim Presswood, policy director for the environmentalist group Natural Resources Defence Council, called the move by Republicans “dim-witted” and “completely ridiculous”.

The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Rep. Fred Upton said that they had “heard the message loud and clear. Americans don’t want government standards determining how they light their homes”

About R. Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the Sr. Managing Editor of Conservative Daily News. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Anomalous Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and google+

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What we conservatives need to do is get an agreement from those who are about to take over both Houses that says that before any dumb *ss liberal “dim-witted” law can be voted on it’s proponents must spend one year enforcing the law on themselves, but yet have to live the normal life they were living just as if nothing had happened. What that means is, stupid dim witted liberal Socialist environmentalists must go about their daily lives, which by the way are just as modern as the rest of us, with gasoline burning cars and all, must remove or restrict from themselves that thing they want the rest of us to have to suffer.

When Mr. Tree Hugging Presswood comes home from a hard day of telling everyone else what is messing the planet of and shouldn’t be allowed to have, comes into his apartment or house and flips the light switch. But instead of electric light coming from whatever kind of stupid bulb he has installed, he has to go over to some nearby table and light with a match a oil lamp and go about the house doing that until he has enough light to do whatever. If he doesn’t think we should have whatever light we want, then he gets no electric light bulbs to live by because everyone knows that one light bulb is just like any other light bulb. So as he goes about his life he doesn’t get to use what the rest of us are FREE to endulge the blessings that God has given us. That’s something leftists don’t believe in since they believe all freedoms and rights come from government. Let’s see how they like having us tell him what to do and for how long and what kind for a year. And he is free to give up any time within that year and take his bill out of Congress and tear it up and forget the whole thing, it was stupid and dim-witted to begin with.